Michael Turns the King of Pop Into a Corporate Tribute Act

The biopic needs to die, or, at the very least, be reinvented. Antoine Fuqua's Michael is the nail in the coffin in a long string of biopics over the last few years that just refuses to get it right.

The film traces the life of Michael Jackson from his Gary, Indiana childhood under the iron fist of his father Joe Jackson (Colman Domingo) through his rise as the undisputed King of Pop, spanning the Jackson 5 era to his late '80s solo dominance. That's where the story, officially, ends.

His story "continues," the film assures us. Lucky us.

Here's what Michael actually is: a 130-minute estate-approved highlight reel with a plot nailed to it. The moment the logo for Michael Jackson's former company, Optimum Productions, appears in the opening credits, the ruse is up. The Jackson siblings are executive producers, and you feel every one of their fingerprints on every sanitized, consequence-free frame. Tons of footage was left on the cutting room floor after millions of dollars in reshoots, and what remains is bland, unfocused, and utterly predictable from frame one.

The film opens with a crowd chanting Michael's signature "hee hee" back to him. I've seen the footage. Nobody was hee hee-ing back then. If that doesn't tell you what kind of movie this is, nothing will.

Jaafar Jackson, the nephew of the icon, son of Jermaine, is an MJ impersonator, full stop. A convincing one, sure. The dancing lands, the mannerisms are studied. But impersonation is not acting, and there were almost certainly better-suited candidates for a role this demanding. Meanwhile, CGI Bubbles the chimpanzee gets more screen time and emotional texture than most of the supporting cast. Director Antoine Fuqua dispatches Bubbles and the rest of it for laughs like we're supposed to find it funny rather than sad. That is a profound misreading of the man. Nia Long as Katherine Jackson is doing God's work in a film that gives her almost nothing to work with. Every scene she's in is better because of her.